User talk:Charles Matthews

Hi Charles, I'm looking for help in obscure corner in the Wikipedia. Sorry for bothering you, but I have the feeling I need (at least) the advice of "senior" editor and admin.

In the Vril article, nonsene gets added again and again. The recent bunch can be seen in this diff [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Vril&diff=8682976&oldid=8681971). You see, Nazi scientists developing tachyon drive flying saucers, Aldebaran aliens, Canaris suporting the Vril secret society and all the stuff.

This would be easy to handle, if not User:Sam Spade heavily defends all this bogus. I'm clueless on his motives. I cannot see why some obscure websites should be included as POV about Third Reich (military) history.

To my best knowledge, whereas the Thule society did really exist and is documented in mainstream history literature, there never was any Vril society. All the talk of Vril society and their fantastic flying saucers is recent, most likely an invention of the internet age.

So, I'm asking you, how I should proceed, both formally and in content.

Regards, Pjacobi 12:23, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

OK, my German is not so great, but I have looked at the version on the German Wikipedia. Is that basically correct, in your opinion? Charles Matthews 14:41, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the German article is fine with me.

Also note that Friedrich Wilhelm Haack, who is a lutheran church expert on sects, occultism, etc, did some books on the links between (neo-)nazism and paganism as well as occultism and he covers the Thule society but not the Vril society. From this I deduce that this society was unheard of at the time of writing of his books (late 60s - early 80s) and clearly not linked to historical nazism.

Pjacobi 18:35, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

New Mathematics Wikiportal

I noticed you've done some work on Mathematics articles. I wanted to point out to you the new Mathematics Wikiportal- more specifically, to the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week page. I'm looking for any math-related stubs or non-existant articles that you would like to see on Wikipedia. Additionally, I wondered if you'd be willing to help out on some of the Collaboration of the Week pages.

I encourage you to vote on the current Collaboration of the Week, because I'm very interested in which articles you think need to be written or added to, and because I understand that I cannot do the enormous amount of work required on some of the Math stubs alone. I'm asking for your help, and also your critiques on the way the portal is set up.

Please direct all comments to my user-talk page, the Math Wikiportal talk page, or the Math Collaboration of the Week talk page. Thanks a lot for your support! ral315 02:53, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Southwold etc

Hi Charles,

Jim here, from Stradbroke Road, Southwold. Not quite sure if this is the correct wiki-etiquette to employ in contacting you, but it should at least work. I hope all is well with you and yours. Drop me a line when you can: jb8764@student.open.ac.uk.

Cheers,

Jim (& Rose)

Well, glad you made it all this way. You caught me in the middle of talking to someone about the dull topic of categories (see my contributions if you like - today's big addition was a long list of books by the pulp writer William le Queux, which is pretty embarrassing. Best to both of you. Charles Matthews 18:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Euler angles

Hi I just saw your miserable experience over in Euler-angle land. Tis a pity, since one of your earlier drafts was a much better article. The current article is written kind of as an "euler angles for ninnies", whereas the earlier drafts were much more in line with professional academic standards. It scares me to think that this could happen to one of my articles :)

I'm wondering whether the solution might be to fork the article into two: one that is a simple, plain-language article, targetted to a grade-school / high-school level, and one for college/professionals? I mention this only because there are a number of articles that sit on the border of these two groups, and have been or potentially are vulnerable to these border clashes. I'm thinking that it might be time to establish a policy on this. But the policy would need a set of conventions: naming conventions for the articles, and the 'recommended' way that each of teh two articles should refer to each other. Thoughts? You'd seem to have the power to institute such a policy.

It's generally better to have a single article, with different treatments if required. Charles Matthews 13:53, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User Rudchenko's Weird Physics Pages

Hi, I was looking after the hadron article, and found a bizarre edit by user 194.44.210.6 (the same guy as Rudchenko?). Following back through that user's contributions I found a dizzying set of gibberish articles: Gluonic vacuum field, Quantization of the pionic interaction, Extended Yukawa potential, W-field, Coherence condition, etc.

I'm pretty well acquainted with the field in question (field theory and QCD), but I couldn't make heads nor tails of this stuff. There are certainly sentences and equations in these articles that look like good physics, but most of it (the titles for example) seems to be pure gibberish. A google search on any of these terms pulls up essentially nothing. It's hard to tell whether there's anything worthwhile in the articles, since it's clear the author is not a native English speaker. My gut feeling was that the whole set should be deleted, since they're incomprehensible even to experts, and thus useless to the average Wiki reader. But I noticed you tried to clean up the Coherence condition article, so I thought I'd ask for a second opinion.

Xerxes 16:46, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

Well, I don't think hasty deletion is the way. I assume this is a Ukrainian phyicist contributing. His English is not good, clearly. What he is up to is explained, for me, in one of the articles that refers back to about 1920. That means that no amount of QCD background is really going to be adequate: the whole way of addressing the field theory problems is different.

So far I have just concentrated on tidying up the English. I have seen nothing there to indicate this is incompetent as theoretical physics, so I have been suspending judgement. Charles Matthews 13:51, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Most of these pages have now been listed on WP:VFD. Paul August ☎ 03:22, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Unusual edits to Many-worlds interpretation

Someone (who now apparently has a user name) keeps adding several sentences to the article Many-worlds interpretation which claims that "life is quantum quackery". I have reverted this several times, and I believe there is the so-called 3-revert rule which as far as I can tell applies in any situation. What do I do now. Arbitration? CSTAR 19:52, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I have now reverted, and others have reverted. The good advice is definitely to stay within the 3RR. If the user reverts often enough he/she can be blocked. Charles Matthews 19:59, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Fortunately, the activities of User:Aero66 seem to have subsided, fpr the moment at least. Initiating and completing a process of Arbitration/Mediation seemed very daunting and time consuming. CSTAR 14:47, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

discussion at WikiProject Mathematics

Hi Charles,

I initiated a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics about whether to put periods at the end of formulas if the formula is at the end of sentence. So far, we have a wide range of opinions, from "don't", to "either way, even risking inconsistency in an article", to "do". Would you comment on this too? So far, I saw this wide range even in individual articles, where some formulas at the end of sentence have period, some don't, some have it before </math>, some have it after. What do you think? Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 17:22, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did, about two minutes ago. I think you are right about this. Charles Matthews 17:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unsolicited Interjection: I am probably one of the worst offenders, although I do believe periods should be placed ar the end of formulas if the formula is at the end of sentence. My inconsistency reflects personal sloppiness rather than any ideological preference. CSTAR 18:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's just a format issue; but it seems to be best at least 95% of the time. Charles Matthews 18:08, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I forgive CSTAR with one condition: would you say on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics that you agree with period at the end of sentence? :) Oleg Alexandrov 18:12, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New Mathematics Project Participants List

Hi Charles. In case you missed the discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Reformat of Participants list, I wanted to let you know that I've converted the "WikiProject Mathematics Participants List" into a table. It is now alphabetical, includes links to the participant's talk page and contribution list, and has a field for "Areas of Interest". I thought you might want to check and/or update your entry.

Regards, Paul August ☎ 20:52, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Charles Matthews 22:18, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Charles,

I was wondering if you can help me with understanding how Brownian Motion is applied to the financial markets. I am interested in this theory and would like to know more, thanks

Chris Bounds, 2 April 2005, wallstm5@hotmail.com

You could look at Black-Scholes, which is directly about this; probably other articles in Category:Financial mathematics, Category:Stochastic processes also. Charles Matthews 20:54, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: Charles Trevelyan

Sorry about that. The page is actually an amalgamation of previous facts on the original page as well as some extra content. - Master Of Ninja 14:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

javelin argument

Hello Charles. i'm new in wikipedia. i wrote the "javelin argument". i put a link to the "javelin" page. i can't find it there now. did you erase it? i didn't find anything in the discussion page... i found out about you in the history. Will you be so kind to explain to me how does this system work? (in short of course). the revised article is better, but has no connection with the "javelin" article. Also, is it right to say "..to support that idea the universe or space is infinite.."? in grammar, i mean. isn't it better to say "..to support the idea that the universe or space is infinite.." ? My English are not so great, i'm afraid. Please answer me here or in my talk page. see you.--Arberor 15:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Welcome. There is in fact a link to javelin, in the quotation. Charles Matthews 15:43, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've made some small changes also. Charles Matthews

Speedy deletion of Papoose

Hi Charles,

While closing speedy deletions from the WP:VFD page, I noticed that you closed Papoose at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Papoose due to it being a vanity page, according to the deletion log:

19:24, 20 Mar 2005 Charles Matthews deleted Papoose (vanity)

I believe that vanity is not a valid candidate for a speedy deletion according to WP:CSD. If you agree, please undelete this article so other people can properly vote in the five day voting period on this article. Just to let you know, I've closed your other speedy deletions before this one as valid speedy deletions. Thanks, Death phoenix 15:20, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Think you should also take into account that it had an actual photo of what was presumably a real child. If only for child protection reasons, I thought it should be off the site as soon as possible. Charles Matthews 15:39, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Admin?

Oleg, I'd be willing to nominate you as an admin, if you are interested.

Your time here is longer than 3 months, and you have over 4000 edits, so most people would be satisfied. There might be some reason to wait a few weeks longer - 4 months is better, in a sense.

Anyway, what do you think?

Charles Matthews 14:16, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Charles. Well, I am surprised and flattered. Thank you for your offer. I thought about it very carefully. I woud say, I feel that I will have to decline it, and I probably will not change my opinion for at least three more months. This for several reasons.

First, the big number of edits you mentioned is partially because I have been doing many really small edits, and partially because recently I have been shamelessly employing a bot to do work for me with minimal or no user interaction.

My second reason is that I still feel I am learning to play by the rules, here, so I do not feel comfortable or ready having more responsibilities.

My third reason is that I am still learning how to balance Wikipedia with other things in my life, and this makes me feel a bit ambivalent towards commiting myself more to Wikipedia.

But I do appreciate your offer, and I leave the options open for considering it at a later time. Thanks a lot! Oleg Alexandrov 17:55, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK - keep up the good work! Charles Matthews 18:27, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

re: speedies

That's fine. If I'm in the wrong, feel free to correct my mistake. Inter\^Echo 17:42, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:Pcpcpc

Please note I have had no contact whatsoever with this person for ages, neither to my certain knowledge has Bishonen yet now this has yet again appeared out of the blue [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pcpcpc#Ignore_list). Are we supposed to ignore him while he slanders ud around the site? Or is finally an administrator going to remind him of common courtesy and manners? Giano 14:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think it is the equivalent of a child putting his fingers in his ears. If you can, don't pay it any attention. Charles Matthews 14:33, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wonder when your time to be listed will come, it can't be far away! Giano 14:44, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hello/Efrons dice

(William M. Connolley 09:10, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Hi Charles... long time no see and such. Thanks for copyedits on ED. A concept (the dice, not copyediting...) I hadn't run into until someone casually mentioned them yesterday...

BTW if I wasn't so incompetent (got the wrong date of the London meet-up) I might have invited Jimbo Wales to Cambridge on his visit to the UK - something I mentioned to him when he was last here in December. The weather might be better in another season. Charles Matthews 09:14, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 11:05, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I'd like to go to a meet-up; children intervened last time sadly. If he came to Cambridge we could take him punting...

Persistent speedies

Kudos for getting on the speedy deletes so fast (John mckearin came right back and was deleted again). I noticed you got Jim Smyth but not its Talk page. I didn't realize talk pages could be orphaned - do they get cleaned up eventually? David Brooks 18:25, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good question. I guess that's somewhat random. Charles Matthews 18:27, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Never let it be said that we wikipedians don't have rules for things. Here the rule is that the deleting admin is supposed to look at the talk page and make a decision whether it should be kept as useful in case of future re-creation, or deleted. Well that's the theory , in practice it is somewhat random. Pcb21| Pete 13:16, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The_Advanced_Wikipedian

(William M. Connolley 12:48, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I think we need your poetry skills: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Advanced_Wikipedian

Humor it may be - is it humour? Some further wit could be applied, let alone scansion and those things. Charles Matthews 12:51, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Help

Hi, You left me a message: Please don't remove links, such as you have been doing with reciprocity law. It is not a constructive approach. I am going to rollback.

The problem is that [reciprocity law] used to redirect straight to [Quadratic reciprocity]. But in photography and holography there is also a reciprocity law. I turned the redirect into a disambiguation page, but noticed there was 4 or 5 pages math page that pointed to it. I went to each one, and in all the cases they had a link to [quadratic reciprocity] and to [reciprocity law]. I have no idea what the reciprocity law in math is, and didn't want to attempt to do a write up on it, and I didn't want to leave it pointing to the disambiguation page, so i removed the link.

What would your suggestion in the future be?

Thanks for your time Johnflux 18:37, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Better to use a dummy link like reciprocity law (mathematics). If you pipe the link like

[[reciprocity law (mathematics)|reciprocity law]]

then nothing gets lost and anyone looking into that red link will be alerted to the issue.

Charles Matthews 18:41, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Will do that in the future. Sorry :) Johnflux 19:10, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Equivalence Principle

Charles -

Just to let you know - I reverted your changes from the Equivalence Principle (EQ) article. I thank you for the redirect from Principle of Equivalence, but there are nuances about the EQ that seem to have escaped you. Please see my points in the discussion for the EQ page.

--EMS 03:51, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK - once I do a merge like that, I'm happy for others to sort out how the page ends up. Charles Matthews 08:36, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thank you for the vote at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Henrygb2. It has made my week. --Henrygb 01:57, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ousmane Issoufi Maïga

Sorry, I didn't know you were working on translating that page til I got to the edit conflict screen, or I wouldn't have done it. I replaced your translation with mine - for no better reason that that I had finished it by then. You can revert to your translation if you like. --Diderot 12:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Holistic science

Just a note to say I'm thrilled with the improvements you made to the holistic science article today. --Smithfarm 18:04, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, thanks. I wasn't really trying to change much; but I suppose I couldn't really help adding a few bits. Charles Matthews 18:07, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

hardworking families

Please reconsider your vote for the article hardworking families; I have expanded it a bit more. Cheers. – Kaihsu 14:16, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

I'm afraid that such an article has a basic flaw. Can one define a hardworking family? Is it a dual-income family, which one could define? No - that's not it. If this material has a place, it is somewhere in with tax and benefits policy.

Charles Matthews 14:20, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Indeed, no one can define what a hardworking family is. But one can define what the phrase 'hardworking families' is – a rhetorical device (codeword). That was what I wrote the article for. It has more to do with the study of rhetoric than with families. – Kaihsu 15:55, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

But that's why it can hardly justify its place as an article, under that title. It's populist rhetoric. Compare for example ownership society, a comparable thing from Bush 2004. There eventually the article got hacked into shape, because one can say, at least roughly, what it's all about. I just can't see it, for this one. Charles Matthews 16:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Mathematical methods

Hi Charles. Do you know what articles are supposed to be in Category:Mathematical methods? It seems that you created this category some time ago. At the moment, it has Category:Algorithms as both a subcategory and a supercategory, which is certainly not right. I hope all is well in Cambridge. Best wishes, Jitse Niesen 18:58, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good question. It should probably be deleted now: anything in it should go somewhere in the Category:Applied mathematics or Category:Operations research. Charles Matthews 19:06, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the category should be deleted, so I listed it on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. -- Jitse Niesen 20:47, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My sincere apologies....

i'll steer clear of that page from now on... I just don't understand why he made all those edits one after the other. I haven't seen that many edits from a single anon. user before... and combined with the spelling, I jumped to the conclusion that it was a vandal. Is there any way you could post a warning about that... or do you already have one up and I didn't read it? Again, I'm sorry... and just let me say that it was the first (and probably last) time that I'll revert revert back THAT far. It might also help if you put up something on the article saying the same thing that you did on my talk page... about major work currently being done on the article. Chances are I wouldn't have reacted the way I did if that had been the case. Still, that's no excuse for what I did. if you can, let that editor know I'm sorry... and I hope that I do NOT hear from you again in THIS manner... because it'll mean that I've screwed up somebody else's hard work again. (Needless to say, I do not find any pleasure in doing such things...)

Sorry about that... forgot to append my "sig." --Chanting Fox 21:41, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just removed my "vandalism report," and I don't think that the fact that I deleted it is going to be a problem. I created it, I'm the only person who posted in regard to it, so I can delete it without having to ask permission. Hope I didn't do something wrong again... but just thought it would be a nice thing to do to show I'm sorry.--Chanting Fox 21:51, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Q-analog(ue)s

I really like the new limit information you put in Q-analogs. Also: sorry I switched Q-analogues to Q-analogs; I'm just starting to learn the rules around here. Vince Vatter 15:11, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK - we try not to let those spelling things become a big deal. Charles Matthews 15:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Antipopes in fiction

I think it is a good idea. When I started fr:Wikipédia:Pages à supprimer#Antipape Benoît XV et Antipape Benoît XVI, I didn't have the idea for fr:Antipapes imaginaires, but I immediatly approved the idea when the page was created, because thse explanations were, in my opinion, "encyclopedical". I enjoy that other have the same opinion for the English WP... :o) Hégésippe | ±Θ± (French User talk page) 14:16, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kyle Riabco/Kyle Riabko

I think our edits stepped on each other. It appears that this artist's name is actually "Kyle Riabko", see [3] (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/11458977.htm&e=10094) and the Google search [4] (http://www.google.com/search?q=kyle+riabko). The redirects resulting from our simultaneous edits are kind of a mess. Since you're an admin, can you straighten this out? Thanks! FreplySpang (talk) 20:25, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Taman Universiti Edit

I saw your edit on the Taman Universiti wiki which I've just started. Do you actually know the town or you're just editing the page for the sake of better English? Whatever it is, thanks for updating it, as the English sounds much better now.

Just a copy edit, really: I did add something about the location. I look at many newly-created pages. Charles Matthews 10:02, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Minor maths stuff

Hi Charles. I see you are a senior editor and maths type person. My poor 1 no longer prime page is really getting it in the neck, 1st by someone else (marked for deletion) then a succinct redirect by you. I created the page to fully explore why 1 is no longer considered prime, the point being that it used to be considered prime. While I was expanding the stub more you did the redirect so please look again. I know humour has no place in maths but please humour the dig at mathematician's egos that I put in there. The truth is I have no idea why it REALLY took place since people did and do think its prime.

Please see the Goldbach's conjecture discussion page as I mention this there (I did a little edit in the origins section pointing to 1 no longer prime) and perhaps you can make sense on what look like typos to me.

Also you made unique factorization redirect to unique factorization domain without actually saying what it is. I added the first paragraph for clarity. Please see the discussion page of UFD for a couple other possible issues I spotted.

Cyclotronwiki 01:33 27 April 2005 Taipei

1 no longer prime is too discursive to be a good WP article. 1 shouldn't be taken to be a prime because it would break unique factorisation; and everyone agrees. Charles Matthews 17:40, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it could be a large page if not controlled but its an interesting piece of mathematical history trivia which is why I created it. If we take another meaning of discursive as in "proceeding to a conclusion through reason rather than intuition" it would be good to see who this everyone is, who opposed, their various positions, and most importantly, something I still want to know, WHEN was this all decided? Cyclotronwiki 01:48 27 April 2005 Taipei

I suspect this was all settled between Euler's times and C. F. Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. By 1800, that is. Probably the Legendre book on number theory was the turning point, but I can't be sure of that. Anyway systematic books on number theory were seen in the 1790s, and having 1 a prime rapidly gets very many things wrong. Since Gauss apparently first proved uniqueness of factorization, he can't have been using a bad definition to do so. Charles Matthews 17:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well I suppose so. Its good to get this info together (perhaps under one article ;) Anyways nevermind hunting down this 1 article, what about the other questions I posed on the discussion pages of Goldbach's conjecture and UFD. I know its late for me but those issues dont make sense. Cyclotronwiki 02:06 27 April 2005 Taipei

Template:Numbers

Wondering if you could please help/comment on Template:Numbers, what should it contain, how best to organize, etc. Its intent was to list numbers with their symbols, in a kind of hierarchy. TxInAdv, -SV|t|add (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Stevertigo&action=edit&section=new) 20:46, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

reductive dual pair

Some time ago you inserted reductive dual pair as an empty link into my newly created article dual pair. Just in case this was meant as a subtle hint for me to create the article, I have to say I have no clue what a reductive dual pair is. MathMartin 21:38, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a Lie group concept, investigated by Howe, in representation theory: a pair of subgroups in a larger group with a certain property. Charles Matthews 19:30, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

Hi Charles. Thanks for your note on the Talk:Heckler page regarding when a NPOV tag should be used. I have been looking for guidance on this in Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View and Wikipedia:NPOV dispute, but can't find anything indicating that the tag should only be used if the issue has already been discussed on the Talk page. Could you point me in the right direction for anything in the way of policy or precedent for this? My original reasoning for putting a NPOV tag was to raise this issue to a wider audience sooner rather than later but if that goes against policy/precedent then obviously I'll need to re-think. Cheers TigerShark 12:29, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I would say the point you raised would naturally come under {{POV check}}. Charles Matthews 14:03, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

List of mathematical topics

Hi Charles. Jitse and me are having a discussion about the List of mathematical topics on my talk page. I wonder what your opinion on some of those things are, in particular, about making a "master page" containing all the article titles listed in List of mathematical topics. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 15:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Mark Gempeler

User:Nickj/non-existent-redirect-message -- All the best, Nickj (t) 01:06, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

questions about sheaves

As you seem a specialist on this...

when one speaks of "restriction morphisms", is it right that they must respect the whole structure of the considered category? I.e., for a sheaf of topological algebras, they must be continuous algebra morphisms? (It seems to me that some authors disagree about that, maybe without noticing it...)
concerning gluing axiom (maybe), I understand (I hope) that e.g. the factor space of sheaves of, say, vector spaces (or algebras modulo sheaf of ideals etc) is in general only a presheaf. Is there a "feasible" condition allowing to say (in favourable cases) when the factor presheaf will be a sheaf, without need of the "full sheafification process"? — MFH: Talk 19:55, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Not such a specialist, and it was a long time ago. First question: probably the wrong kind of question really. Though I can imagine such sheaves easily enough, and the only sensible answer would be 'yes, use only morphisms good in the category'. For the second, the formulation is wrong? One wants to have an abelian category of sheaves, so that there must be a notion of kernel, quotient. Perhaps the right question is formulated more like: how to describe the quotient in more elementary terms? For example, at the level of stalks.

Charles Matthews 20:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. (although I don't understand what you mean by "wrong kind of question" and "the formulation is wrong?" - so for the moment, I won't meditate about that, maybe it will become clear later on... - maybe its also a confirmation of what I'm actually exactly talking about.)

1st point: I'm coming to this from an area of functional analysis where quotients of product spaces are considered. I'm running across lots of papers where the authors give themselves quite some pain in assuming (and stating the technically involved) "additional assumptions" making "everything work", because they take granted only the purely algebraic properties of the restrictions (vector space or algebra morphisms), but these additional assumptions just amount to continuity of the restrictions. (Often people using sheaf concepts (to define singular support etc.) are pure analysts that do everything by calculating majorations for some complicated integrals, and they don't really exploit the full-fledged category theory language.)
2nd point: here again, kernel and quotient are in those papers taken in a purely algebraic (i.e. set theoretic) way, i.e., they write for example

Let <math>\Omega\to A(\Omega)<math> be a sheaf of algebras, and <math>\Omega\to I(\Omega)<math> a sheaf of ideals of A. Then we have a the factor presheaf <math>\Omega\to F(\Omega)=A(\Omega)/I(\Omega)<math>...

So you agree that this is not correct? (I'm not sure if you get what I mean... e.g., as I understand, "sheaf of ideals" means for them just: for each Ω, I(Ω) is an ideal of A(Ω), and elements(functions) therein can be restricted to subsets of Ω. Whereas I think there is quite a bit more to it.) — MFH: Talk 17:13, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I think I should maybe write up the exponential sheaf sequence, as a good example of exact sequences. There it is just a matter of expressing how logarithms work in the complex domain. The exactness on stalks is simple to understand. The corresponding sequence of sections is not exact, over non-simply connected sets; so you can't just take quotients on the section level. Charles Matthews 21:32, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree on both points. Indeed, the exponential is a good pedagogical example. I think this really helps to understand the meaning of sheaf morphisms. Please do it! — MFH: Talk 22:40, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Andrea Echeverri copy/paste move

Hi there. I just saw a notice to fix a copy & paste move at WP:RM regarding Andrea Echeverri. Articles need to be moved using the move button in order to retain the editing history, otherwise we violate the terms of the GFDL. If you can't do a move then just request it at WP:RM and an admin can do it. Cheers, violet/riga (t) 15:12, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I suspect this is a misunderstanding on User:Fibonacci's part. I would not move by copy-and-paste, I think, under any usual circumstances. Charles Matthews 15:19, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

bath moved to Bath

Thanks...Bbpen 18:47, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Category:Laws of thought

Could I get you to edit this category (which you created) and add some text explaining what it's for? Its purpose is less than obvious. ----Isaac R 02:38, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

generalized functions

Please have a look at my critics on Talk:Generalized function. (I'm sorry in case it would seem unpolite, which was not intended at all.) — MFH: Talk 14:44, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

red links

maybe some of your "red links" could be "eliminated" by a more or less adequate redirection. Are you generally in favour of this, or rather prefer the "red link" as indicator that something has to be done ? — MFH: Talk 19:00, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Wave front

What did you mean to redirect Wave front to? Currently it redirects to itself. Broken Segue 23:16, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

certainly wavefront, I fixed it. (could also be Lars Hörmander's wave front set used in microlocal analysis, currently redirecting to wavefront, which is an error). — MFH: Talk 21:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm aware that wave front set as used in mathematics is not just the thing in Huyghens' principle; but it is not disjoint from it either (cf. the Guillemin-Sternberg book Geometric Asymptotics, where there is some statement of the HP as 'functoriality of the wave front set'). So, while the physics concept does not contain the full value of the mathematics concept, I think 'error' is too strong. Charles Matthews 11:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Of course there's some "common idea" (whence Hörmander's choice), but on wavefront no bit of information can be found for s.o. looking for the definition (or even basic idea) of the wave front set. — MFH: Talk 21:01, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for putting the [ [ ... ] ] at the right place (cotangent bundle vs WF set) on my new article about wave front set. However, I'm not so happy about your other edits. Please see Talk:Wave front set. — MFH: Talk 12:47, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Woods hole fixed point theorem

Hello. You seem to have put a link to this not-yet-existing article into fixed point theorem. Can you tell me what this theorem is? I can't help but think of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and wonder if there's a connection? Michael Hardy 01:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

It was a version of the Atiyah-Bott fixed-point theorem that was worked out at a conference at Woods Hole some time in the early 1960s. I believe, though I'm not an expert, that it is the case of the later theorem where the fixed point set is a discrete set of points. It has some historical importance, in that Goro Shimura has (IIRC) complained that the later full publication didn't properly credit the WH discussion. I read about it once in a duplicated set of conference notes, but I think they were not published in book form. The reference is there as a kind of sop to NPOV. Charles Matthews 11:08, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Covariant Coordinate System

In general there is no such thing as a "Covariant Coordinate System" . In what physicists call "flat space" (probably an "affine manifold" for math guys), you can indeed define such a system in coordinate systems with straight axes (for example, Cartesian, or skew-Cartesian). In curved manifolds you are generally not so lucky. As I have remarked before in some of these discussions, the contravariant coordinate differentials are perfect differentials. Thus their integrals are unique labels for points and can be used as coordinates. In curved spaces (nonzero Riemann tensor) you can't integrate the covariant components of the differentials of the coordinates to get coordinates. The integral is in general path-dependent so you do not get a unique label for a point. Consider, for example, the sphere, using spherical polar coordinates. Let the polar angle be theta. The differential of the azimuthal angular coordinate is d_phi, and is the increment of change in angle round the polar axis. Its integral is phi, a coordinate. The covariant equivalent is r^2 sin(theta)^2 d_phi (using simple Tex-like notation.) You can't integrate that one to get a coordinate, and using a different coordinate system will not help (using the intrinsic geometry of a sphere - if you jump to 3-d space you can do it by reverting to rectangular coordinates, but that's not the game). If you do happen to think you can integrate r^2 sin(theta)^2 d_phi consider doing it along a parallel of latitude, and then compare going toward a pole along a meridian, along a parallel to the new theta, and then down to the latitude at which you started. The sin(theta)^2 makes the answer less when you use such a path. I suggest you remove that stuff about covariant coordinates or restrict it to rectangular and affine coordinates in flat spaces. Sorry.Pdn 02:49, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't really understand what you are arguing here. Certainly dx is an exact differential (perfect differential, as you would have it. But in 'curved spaces', i.e. manifolds, there is a perfectly good notion of coordinate system, i.e. a chart. That's quite independent of any metric notions. Charles Matthews 13:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry - I fixed up some thetas and phis above. I will look up "chart" if I can find it. I agree that there is a good coordinate system in all the smooth spaces I know of, although of course it can be multiple-valued in ways we can handle (such as an angle whose range we restrict). May I ask for a simple example of a curved manifold with that you call a "covariant coordinate system?" Thanks Pdn 14:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

The meaning I'm using is chart (topology). I would never talk myself about a coordinate system as covariant. On a manifold one has various kinds of vectors and tensors, which may be covariant or contravariant. The difference is like this: take the Earth's surface: latitude and longitude give a satisfactory way of setting up a coordinate system anywhere (excluding the North or South poles). A vector field is something like what would appear on a weather map with arrows for the horizontal wind velocity. 'Dual' to that one has isobars. So I see all these as distinct concepts. Charles Matthews 14:54, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

In the changes to [5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariance_and_contravariance) on 27th May at 10:57 AM I believe you wrote "In tensor analysis, a covariant coordinate system is reciprocal to a corresponding contravariant coordinate system. Expressions for lengths, areas and volumes of objects in the vector space can then be given in terms of tensors with covariant and contravariant indices." This material disagrees with my conception and with your statement a few lines up (on this talk page):"I would never talk myself about a coordinate system as covariant, " unless there is a Wiki software glitch. Please state which one you mean. Thanks. I don't mean to be picky but I want it all to be crystal clear.Pdn 17:05, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, I didn't write that. I merged it in from the contravariant page, in creating the new covariance and contravariance page, from the bits and pieces on this topic. Of course it all needs work now. Charles Matthews 18:57, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I also do not understand your remarks about winds being "dual" to isobars. Generally, winds flow more or less parallel to isobars due to geostrophic effects [6] (http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section6.html) except at the equator. I think maybe you meant "orthogonal" by "dual" but as I say, that's not so for the winds. Anyway, you are talking abut vector (or tensor) fields defined on a manifold, I believe, while before you were onto the coordinates. In two dimensions you may "luck out" in finding integrals of vector fields that can be used as coordinates. ("coordinates" can't be multiple-valued except trivial cases like angles, where you can pick a principal branch). In more dimensions, the issues fall under those of "Pfaffian differential forms" and theorems due to Caratheodory [7] (http://dequim.ist.utl.pt/docentes/2219/images/68.pdf). In other words (within my limited understanding of the mathematics and of what you are trying to say with your "dual" field), the dual exists only locally and trajectories of the dual field cannot be used as level-surfaces or coordinate lines in curved spaces of dimension > 2.Pdn 17:58, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to talk in lowbrow terms, since you asked for a 'simple example'. I'm not quite sure in what register to conduct this discussion. You are quoting something like the Frobenius theorem to me. Of course I was simply using the isobars as a kind of 'orthogonal trajectory' way of describing duality. We can drop the whole business - obviously I'm not talking about geostrophic effects. This is about discussing what is covariant and what is contravariant, I imagine. (Pfaffian) differential 1-forms are contravariant, as the dual kind of field to a vector field. Charles Matthews 18:57, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Grand - I understand and will love to drop it, too. It is unfortunate that the inadvertent copying of "covariant coordinate system" triggered my interest. Yes, the celebrated theorem of Frobenius is probably more relevant than Caratheodory's work, which I was recalling from about 1953, when I read Margenau and Murphy's "The Mathematics of Physics and Chemistry". Pdn 15:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

policy on deleting material from talk pages

Dear Charles, Is it acceptable to delete material from a talk page if it raises an issue that has obviously been dealt with in a satisfactory way? The example I have in mind is the "I have a minor beef..." paragraph on the Galois theory discussion page. You may answer in the affirmative by simply deleting this question from your talk page. Thanks Dmharvey 15:56, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

On the whole transparency is valued more than brevity. That is, most people much prefer talk pages to remain complete until they can be archived. The default is simply to leave things. By the way, hello, and thank you for your contributions. Charles Matthews 15:58, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

OK. You're welcome. This whole wikipedia thing is quite interesting, and I am enjoying myself, though I anticipate it becoming a real timesink. (Especially since the server seems very slow at the moment.) Hmmm. I have been astonished how many outside websites are copies of the articles in wikipedia. Some without ascribing any credit it seems. (Or perhaps wikipedia is not always the original source?).

One thing I am finding very difficult in the maths articles is gauging audience level. I have read the discussion on this topic on the wikiproject mathematics page, but I'm still finding it very difficult. For example, I just reworked the introduction to elliptic curves. The problem there is that the technical definition (which may be useful for a mathematician) is very short, and so I feel can be placed profitably in the opening paragraph. On the other hand, it is complete gobbeldygook for anyone without the background, so I provided a second definition which hopefully a high school student could get something out of, but which is in many ways quite misleading. But then we haven't covered elliptic curves defined over a scheme...! At some point I have to stop trying to cram more advanced versions into the introduction, but I'm not sure where that line should be drawn; it is not clear to me in the elliptic curves article whether I have pushed it too far, or whether it has not gone far enough. Do you have any favourite articles that you think succeed in addressing the multiple-audience problem?

I don't think we really have a solution to writing our intros. Like some other things, it may have to wait for a much more sophisticated set of page meta-data: so you could read the high-school intro or the math major intro or the physics professor intro ... Contemplating that, one sees that there is no real solution, beyond showing some good will towards the reader. Charles Matthews 21:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

long-term of future of mathematics in wikipedia

I am wondering what your opinion is of the possible long-term future of maths in wikipedia? In particular, do you think that wikipedia (or some other wiki-based medium) has the capacity to (eventually) become an authoritative source on well-understood material? I guess 'authoritative' and 'well-understood' are somewhat rubbery terms. For an arbitrary starting point, perhaps 'well-understood' might mean "material that has made it into book form by 2005", and 'authoritative' might mean that a professional mathematician might consider making WP their first port of call for learning material they are unfamiliar with. I appreciate your insight, you seem to have had a lot of experience on WP. Dmharvey 17:21, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

To try to sum up my take on this - mathematics is short of good survey articles, and not really short of textbooks, except for things that are quite recent. It is quite hard to get a good historical perspective, from the technical literature alone; and much harder to understand what is going on in the Russian or Japanese perspectives, than in Paris or Princeton. We ought to be trying to give a good broad coverage, by survey article standards, with reasonable references. We ought to be giving the sort of background that makes the current preprints more accessible (so, basic definitions to answer 'what the hell is X?' questions). We should reach for a good overview of the whole tradition, and what is going on globally. I don't think it is so sensible to aim to compete directly with the conference literature, say. WP ought to complement academia, and make the effort to explain 'how it all fits together' and 'why any of this matters' - which academics generally don't find the time for. Charles Matthews 21:01, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. (BTW thanks for your time in answering these questions; you must be a pretty busy guy.) I certainly agree with your last sentence, i.e. that WP should help explain 'how it all fits together', I'm very keen on that. I'm also very keen on giving historical perspective. On the other hand, it seems that WP provides an ideal vehicle for a piece of writing to start off as a survey article, but then slowly morph into something providing textbook level detail, while nevertheless remaining a survey article to a reader not concerned with details or proofs. (They just don't have to follow all the links.) Mathematics seems to be a subject area especially suited to this, since there tends to be less disagreement about correctness than in most other academic discplines.

I'm sure this meta-wiki discussion has been had by plenty of people already :-). Perhaps I should spend some time reading what everyone else has had to say. As I am a wiki newbie, I am probably suffering from some kind of wiki-thrill, believing that WP can solve all of humanity's problems. It does seem to me to be a genuinely new form of communication/publishing media, which as you can tell I find very exciting.

WP can do some good, no question. Trying to audit quite how much progress is interesting, taxing and sometimes chastening. The first five years, for mathematics, is going to look like 10000 pages with much 'core' material. Chronologically the solid coverage can get us into the 1950s, mostly; but not past 1960. I would project, that in 2010 it would look more like 1970 rather than 1960; and even that is ambitious and would require much more expertise in the 'rarer' topics (algebraic geometry and topology, for example) than we currently command. I'm quite upbeat, but it is still very easy to find the gaps. Charles Matthews 10:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Charles, Dmharvey. I don't mean to butt in on this conversation, but I've enjoyed reading both of your thoughts in this and the above section (the "multiple audience" issue particularly), and I would expect others involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics would find these discussions interesting and beneficial as well, and perhaps even want to join in ;-) However if you prefer to keep this a private discussion, I respect that. Paul August ☎ 15:13, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not saying anything private - go ahead, Paul. Charles Matthews 15:27, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Charles, yes, I didn't really think that what you were saying was meant to be private (I was just trying to allow for the possibility that you or Dmharvey might prefer to have a two-person conversation). And anyway there isn't anything I really want to add to the discussion — yet. I just think that you guys have been having a couple of interesting discussions that others would be interested in also. So I was trying to encourage you to consider discussing these ideas on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. (By the way thanks for your vote in support of my admin nomination ;- ) Paul August ☎ 16:45, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, nothing on WP is private :-) (Unless of course you're using PGP, but that, as they say, is just not cricket.) I'm quite happy for anybody to move the above text to an appropriate venue, or to do whatever is appropriate. Dmharvey 18:22, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

VfD's on Japanese articles...

Superset is this vfd (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Articles_on_Imperial_Japan), they are listed individually in that VfD as well. FYI. I voted keep. Wikibofh 04:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert - I'm only sporadically online today. Charles Matthews 15:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Japanese fascism seems to be by the same author; see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Japanese fascism. Did you try / manage to come into contact with the author? -- Jitse Niesen 01:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've created a customized cleanup template, and gone through every article in your list and added it. Hope you don't mind. I'm hoping it will head off VfD. You can find it on the bottom of my userpage if you want to cut-n-paste it. Wikibofh 03:59, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My personal interest in Japanese side and motives to sended japanese informations

In first place,i sended my great agreed for your understanding respect at my attempts of sended information,still my limits in idiom.

i when see your intense cleanups,observed why this information no losses the principal escense of this,at contrary are convert to interesting and easy to read(how poses sources i can to compared and never seeing any change in roots of ideas in these dates)

Reiterally i no poses any imagination or great capacity to inventive for created all type of cyphers or social and military details,more less inside of japanese side or from these times. these information are only knowed in detail any person why living in these moments or stay in somes forgett history old books of 40 or 60s editions in english.

for other Hand the Lingua franca,if for suppose the English and the best experts in materia or the more detailed research groups or discusion or analisis tables in topic,if obviously in english too. in other idioms this information are more short,limited or never exists,only in english...

i am poses personal interest in topic: i poses any japanese ancestor (little merchant),i poses present japanese friends,i knowed of relate of oldest parents why theirs during wartimes knowed some japanese fishers why result ones japanese agents with short wave radios and responsed to Japanese Navy superior.theirs stay relationed with Japanese special plan of I-400 subs and i read of Japanese order to Sub I-9 to patrol waters surrond U.S.Panama Canal.

in personally i sende more hate for statisticts or numbers or any cyphers groups,or all great mass of dates,but over my typical hate or disdain at statistics or great mass of dates i stay identified with Japanese side ,for all decided to sended this information,

this if my principal founts of my incredible,highly questionable or very dudous information over General Japanese civil and Military comments:

General sources:(oldest editions of 40s to 60s)

Cressey,G.B.Peoples and lands of Asia
Scion,Jules. Asie des Moussons(english edition)
Behr,Edward.The Last Emperor
Book Asia,the great Continent
Newman, Joseph. "Goodbye Japan"
Whitney Hall, John."Japanese Empire"
Gonzales-Hontoria,M.African and Asian States(Estados Asiaticos y Africanos)

over Chinese japanese War comments if my sources:

Max,Alphonse.Southwest Asia,Reality and Destiny.
American First-hand and Chinese side relate "China In Weapons" or "China in Arms" about chinese-japanese conflict.

reiterraly my great agree with you.

by 200.46.215.181

Forgive me for intejecting. I saw some of your articles before. Your motives are admirable; and it is understandable that you do not speak English well. I would like to ask you just a small favor. Could you please put a space after comma, that will be so helpful. And if you make an account, it will be easier for us to track what you write. To return you the favor, I voted against deletion of those articles. Oleg Alexandrov 03:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cubing the cube

Should the last sentence of the last paragraph of "Cubing the cube" read "that is, given a cube C, to divide it into finitely many smaller cubes, no two congruent," instead of "not all"? —Sean κ. + 17:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Since you're a Go player...

Since you are one, take a look at WikiGo and tell me what you think, or possibly participate. Thanks! -- Natalinasmpf 16:03, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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